Dr. Kazue Togasaki became one of the first Japanese American women to earn a medical degree in the US.

In the midst of World War II, as many people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in internment camps, a pioneering doctor helped ensure that pregnant women got the best care she could provide. Dr. Kazue Togasaki fought sexism and racism to become one of the first Japanese American women to earn a medical degree in the US. Over the course of her remarkable career, she delivered over 10,000 babies, including 50 during one month at the Tanforan Assembly Center. "In other camps, I know they’d send the pregnant women out to the nearest county hospital to deliver, but I never thought about sending them out from Tanforan," she recalled years later. "I thought it was my duty." Continue reading → Continue reading

13 children's books about Japanese-American girls interned during WWII.

For most people, the idea of rounding people up into camps is decidedly un-American, the sort of thing that we associate with tyrants and dictatorships. And yet, that's exactly what happened after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during WWII — over 100,000 Japanese Americans, the majority of whom were native born U.S. citizens, were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in the name of "national security." Any person of Japanese ancestry could be suspect, the government at the time reasoned, and therefore all of them should be treated as such. In fact, the federal government admitted decades later that the policy has been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." Continue reading → Continue reading